


Come And See

by gisho



Series: Silk Road [2]
Category: GetBackers
Genre: Alternate POV of Canon, Canon Backstory, Divided Loyalties, Tense Shifting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-30
Updated: 2015-11-30
Packaged: 2018-05-04 03:30:41
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,466
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5318786
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gisho/pseuds/gisho
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Kazuki left Mugenjou, time went out of joint for Juubei.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Come And See

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted on LiveJournal. Content note for dysphoria and dissociation, canon-typical violence.

\--

"Goodnight," says Kazuki, but what he means is _goodbye_ , and the noise of his footsteps as he leaves Juubei lying still as death, eyes closed, is the noise of a thousand slamming doors. 

\-- 

His sister found him first, of course. He didn't say anything when she wandered in, her gaze slipping politely over the broken bottles and pieces of concrete until she found him, curled up in the corner. Her footsteps were deliberately loud, an announcement of her presence - Sakura habitually glided over the floor, barely touching it. "Juubei," she said. 

Juubei didn't answer. 

"Kazuki's gone." That too was unusual, for her to be so blunt. Perhaps it was not deliberate. Perhaps it was a distress signal. "He left three days ago." 

He still didn't answer. She was only confirming his suspicions. 

"He didn't say when he was coming back." There is only half a step from this to the next link in the chain of logic: "Maybe he's not coming back." 

Juubei stares at the floor, silent. What is there to say? His heart is gone. 

"Juubei? Come with me?" 

Without Kazuki, he does not know where he is. He lets the silent spirit, the ghost that is his sister, take his hand and lead him away. 

Makubex is waiting for them, of course, waiting in the shell of an empty apartment, standing in the dark. He does not ask questions, and his eyes are silent. "Kazuki is not coming back," he says. Sakura gasps, but Juubei knew this already. "Shido has not left yet, but he will, and soon. And - everyone else has already gone." There are two people he refers to, but Juubei cares for none of this. Only Kazuki. "Times are changing. What will you do now?"

Juubei will not meet his gaze. 

Makubex nods, as if this lack of an answer was exactly the answer he wanted. "I understand if you need time to think," he says. "But don't take too long. There are a lot of things that we need to do. Come on, Sakura." He takes Sakura's hand and leads her away, and she follows him. 

Juubei notes the casual ownership in that touch as they vanish behind the closing door. For a moment bile rises in his throat, that any man could treat his sister like that, but - that was how Kazuki treated him, wasn't it? And he adored it, like a beaten dog, crawling back always for more. To what purpose? Because it had been a family tradition? 

Not much of a reason. Once upon a time he had thought it was a perfect reason, but he was older now. 

He moved slowly, wandered over to the deserted computer. Makubex had left it open, sitting on the floor. The screen was filled with green words on a black background; none of them were comprehensible to Juubei. 

He watched them for a while, wondering what they meant to Makubex. He was, he realized, terribly angry. Kazuki had left him. _How dare he._ He had turned his back on a promise centuries old, and he had not even told Juubei why. All Juubei asked was to be allowed to love him. How could Kazuki take away even that? It was only right to be angry.

It was some time before Juubei realized Makubex had returned and was standing behind him. "Have you thought it over?" he asked, pleasantly, like a man enquiring after the weather. His smile showed only a little bit of strain around the edges. 

Juubei surprises himself by shaking his head. 

Makubex kneels next to him, folding his feet neatly beneath him - a womanly gesture, the posture of someone in a kimono, and Juubei wonders for a moment where a boy from Mugenjou picked that up. Sakura, perhaps. "Perhaps I can help", the boy says. "It hurts, doesn't it? That he went away. That he didn't even say why." His voice is distant. "But it will heal, in time. You don't need him." 

_He was everything to me,_ Juubei thinks. _My liege-lord, my lover, every bright thing in the world._

"You don't, " Makubex continues, answering the unspoken thought. "You loved him. That's admirable. But the fact remains that he left you. He was not worthy of your love, Juubei. If he were, he would have recognized its value, and he never would have left." 

Juubei looks at the computer, still full of its incomprehensible messages. Not incomprehensible to Makubex.

"I know I can never replace him," Makubex says quietly. "But I need you." He holds out a hand to Juubei, inviting, trusting. "Mugenjou needs you. I promise, you won't be left behind again." 

Gradually, the static of anger and pain in Juubei's mind began to clear. He reached out and took Makubex's hand, leaning low to press his lips to the boy's slender fingers (so like those of another boy long ago but that didn't matter anymore). "My lord," he said. "What is your will?" 

"We will do what we must," Makubex answered.

They walked out into the sunlight together. 

The next few months were a blur in his memory, smudged with gray and flashes of red. He remembered a number of battles. He was uncertain of the exact number. They string together like beads of water flowing together, and the forms of his enemies are replaced even as he sees them by irregular shadows. 

Somewhere overhead is a bright light. The sun. His enemies are not shadows but mirrors, patches of distortion. Somewhere beside him Emishi's whip cracks out again and again and again, and he hears laughter. Emishi has many kinds of laughter. This is the most terrifying kind. 

Emishi had taken it hard when Shido left. Makubex went to see Emishi, holding out another promise. Juubei spoke firmly, clearly, trying to draw him out. _He hovers between anger and despair. The despair should be assuaged, but we will have need of that anger._ He remembered the certainty in those words, and spoke of hope, and people in need of protection, and so he drew Emishi back. The words were a buzz in his ears, and he could not have repeated them two seconds later. He recalls that now, as the noise of a hyena echoes in his ears. 

It hurts, but distantly. It is late summer, when the Beltline raids begin to happen more often. The sky overhead is brilliant blue. When the Thunder Emperor was here he would call a summer thunderstorm down on their enemies. An avenging angel. Makubex does not fight beside them. He never has. 

He appears suddenly, when the battle is over, in the shadow of a building, and looks over the bodies and seems to find them good. _A jealous god_ , Juubei thinks, and does not know why. 

"You've done well," Makubex told him. "Come with me." 

Juubei had not seen this place before, and the chessboard floor seemed to stretch further than the space could contain. The room was dark and quiet and cool, except for the buzzing of the computers. The sound was almost serene, peaceful. "I've been putting this together," Makubex told him. "Sakura helped, some. It's a secret, for now. There are things I can't do with just the computers I had before." 

"What are you going to do?" Juubei asked. The screens were still covered in flickering boxes, green on black, and Juubei still did not understand them. He didn't have to understand them, though. Makubex would understand them, like he understood everything. All Juubei had to do was obey. It was a comforting thought. 

Makubex just smiled. "They're a weapon," he answered. "Against Babylon City." Juubei wanted to ask more, but Makubex had turned aside and did not seem inclined to speak. He seated himself before the computers and said, to the empty air, "It's not much of a joke." 

"It wasn't meant as one," answers the glittering spot in the air. Juubei remembers this later, quite distinctly, more distinctly than the battle that preceded it. Kagami's appearance was sudden, as always. "I know you don't like my being here alone." 

Makubex shrugs. "You weren't. You came in when we did." He nods at the man in the white suit, who Juubei suddenly wants to hurt very badly, for no reason he can name. "Kagami-kun, I know you believe yourself to be a wit, but Juubei has very little sense of humour, and I wouldn't wish you two to come to any misunderstanding." 

"Then, of course, I shall refrain." Kagami bows to Juubei; Juubei stares at him, uncertain whether he is expected to return the gesture. 

Makubex smiles at them, a smile with no humour in it, the only kind of smile he ever gives these days. "I have a job for you, just a little delicate one," he tells Kagami. "I need someone intimidated. Be careful, though - I shall be most unhappy if he's damaged permanently."

"But of course. Who?" 

"A man in the south block. He's called Taro. Likes to call himself Taro the Claw. Let him know his life is forfeit for giving me false information about that ambush plan - then change your mind. Tell him you might persuade me to spare him, if he agrees to work his way into that group of imbeciles who call themselves the Righteous Dagger. I might need someone there when I take them over. Some of the last hold-outs." Makubex sighs with displeasure. How sad, his expression seemed to say, that people don't agree with me. "Make him beg for the chance. I don't mind if he bleeds a little." 

Kagami's laughter echoes as he leaves. 

The Righteous Dagger, within a month, are either dead or have sworn loyalty to Makubex. It's a fifty-fifty split, more or less. Makubex does not recieve their oath in person. He sends Juubei instead, and Juubei looks at their expressions of mingled terror and worship, and realizes what Makubex has made, and what he himself is becoming. The deaths are no less sour for the necessity; he takes comfort that although he has killed for Makubex, he has only killed the monsters from the Beltlne, that he has been allowed to spare those humans who have simply picked the wrong side. Many of them died anyway, of course; some of the other people who are working for Makubex now are very bloodthirsty. Juubei is not one of them. He tells himself he will never be one of them. He will kill, if necessary, but he will only kill a human being if Makubex orders him too. He will not take the opportunity to kill simply because Makubex did not ask him to let someone live. 

It was October by then, and the chill in the air was a familiar one. It meant danger. There was no pattern to the Beltline raids on the microscopic scale, but on the macroscopic scale (Makubex's words, cool and scientific, ready to measure up the blood spilled in milliliters) they peaked in autumn, and were at their lowest in spring. For a while that had meant the terretorial gang-fights had increased in spring, but the Volts had changed that. For a few springs there had been peace. (Raitei had left in early spring.) 

It seemed as if Makubex was replicating the feat. 

Still, come October and the flat gray sky there was cause to be grateful for the remnants of the Righteous Dagger, and a dozen others, improvised groups or old groups rediscovered, dissolved again in the face of Makubex's reign. Most of them did not fight valiantly. They fought like fanatics. They destroyed the beasts, and when they had done that they ripped up the corpses of those who did leave corpses. 

Makubex called him into the room where he kept his computers once. He was lying with his head in Sakura's lap, and Juubei felt, oddly, that he had been privledged to see it; Makubex knew full well the vulnerabilites of showing emotion, but he showed it to Juubei anyway, and the three of them spoke together of Babylon City. 

"They will not hear us if it does not amuse them," Makubex said. "And I will not beg." Juubei understands this very well. Even if it was still within his power to disagree, he would not. 

Sakura's hands move restlessly over Makubex's hair, smoothing it out, knowing her attention is innapropriate. "We must not move too hastily," Sakura said. "We will only have one chance. Once they know we are a threat to them, they will pit all their resources against us." She did not meet his eyes, or Makubex's. 

"They are capricious. They will not take us seriously until we force them to." Makubex's lips curled in scorn.

Juubei considered. "You have a plan," he said, not as a question. 

The smile that answered him had a hint of paternal affection for his cleverness. "I do, but it will not be easy. Not yet. I'll tell you about it when the time comes." 

Sakura bowed her head. "We will wait," she said. "There is no shortage of time; our opression grows no darker, if no easier, with time." 

"No. It grew darker when Raitei left." Makubex closed his eyes. "But we'll bring the sun back," he said to himself. It was several years before Juubei recognized the significance of this remark, and realized how long and how subtly Makubex had laid his plans. 

Makubex had sent Sakura away, explaining gently that he wished to speak to Juubei alone. _I have no doubts of you._ That was what was in his eyes, unspoken. It crossed Juubei's mind to wonder if they had become lovers yet, but he quashed the thought. Unworthy of him. If they had not, it was of no matter, and if they had, it was no concern of his. He was neither of their masters.

"You still miss him, don't you," Makubex says to him, curiously. Juubei wonders briefly where Makubex found the scarf he wears constantly now. Another piece of his mask; it cannot be coincidence that he has taken to wearing long sleeves and gloves, as Juubei himself put on sunglasses and no longer takes them off except to sleep or bathe. "You try to forget, but you cannot." 

Juubei will not lie, not here and now. Makubex's hair is still vaugley disheveled, and his eyes have a hint of something like exhaustion or amusement at their edges. Juubei looks away. "No," he says. "I cannot forget. Forgive me. I know my loyalty should be yours - " 

"Come here," Makubex says, and Juubei kneels, ready to recieve whatever rebuke this boy wishes to give him. But he feels instead only the touch of a cool hand on the back of his neck. "That is not wrong. I will expect no more of you than you are able to give, although no less." 

The hands that touch him are small and gentle though their gloves. Too cold. Always too cold. Juubei is ashamed to find himself enjoying the touch, even as those hands fold his sunglases, set them aside, touch his closed eyelids possesively. "You loved him more than he deserved," says Makubex's voice from far away. "Let it go." 

But he cannot let it go. Juubei waits, patient, as the hands slip under his shirt. "You don't need him. All you need is me." Cool fingertips, no longer gloved, and a tongue slipping between his lips and teasing him out. 

It occured to Juubei to wonder how old Makubex was. He had never said, and he looked no age in particular. Past ten, but not yet sixteen. Juubei can feel the floor through the fabric of his jeans, cold tile over colder concrete; his knees feel as if they are bruising. He wants to get up, to move, to at least suggest that they lie down, but to speak would be to acknowledge what is happening, and he cannot do that. To speak would be to realize that it is not Kazuki who his touching him. Not Kazuki whose hair is brushing his shoulder as he rains kisses across Juubei's chest, undoes his belt buckle before he notices, lets his shirt fall again as he lowers his head to rest on Juubei's thigh. Juubei closes his eyes. 

When he rises at last Makubex looks at him, a little dissapointed perhaps, but satisfied. "Let it go," he says. The sensations of that too-sure touch vanished in an instant of memory, but he will remember how the floor felt against his folded knees for years. "Forget. It stops hurting, if you stop holding on to the memories." 

The light outside was too bright, and his knees still hurt when he left, absurdly. He knows what he must do, but it bears little relationship to such matters as make an impression upon his conciousness at the present moment, and the world still seems picked out in polygons, an irregular and imprefectly-programmed game. He does not know the word for his distress. 

Winter that year was bitterly cold. Red blood on grey concrete, and the green glow of the heiroglyphs on Makubex's screens, were the only colors that Juubei remembered in the spring. Spring came slow to Mugenjou, and there were no flowers to mark the passage of time, only the slow shortening of the night, the sudden and unexpected absence of the sharp cold of winter winds. In the room in the depths it was always too cold. Makubex did not seem to mind it; Juubei dared not mind it in front of Makubex, although he did not for a moment believe that Makubex was not aware of his discomfort, and the warmth of those slender hands was the more disturbing for the contrast. 

There were still rebellions. There had been none that winter, but that too heralded the approach of spring. They were public things, now, proud of their approach. Makubex had lost all mercy. "Pay no heed," he said, when Emishi asked him whether to spare any. "Kill them if you wish to." 

Juubei did not wish to, but his intentions did not last. It was the first truly warm day that spring, and the creatures from the Beltline had not been seen for weeks, when a group of men, ordinary men, with red tattos on their foreheads, took over the South Block market. It did not take long to demolish them, but it was exhausting, and toward the end one leapt at Juubei with a staff broken from a road sign pole with such speed and vigor that Juubei thought for a moment that he was imagining it, exhausted into hallucinations. 

His body did not stop to think. The man gave a gurgle as he fell and died before he slammed against the street. There was something odd about his _chi_ but Juubei cannot tell whether it is that there is something odd inhereant in it or whether it is the same disruption that led to his silent death, and already the problem is fading and so he puts it from his mind and turns and unleashes his needles again and again and at first he does not realize when the battle is over. 

Sakura is behind him; he can feel the curves of her body. "Don't worry, brother," she says to him. "Don't worry." She is not worried. Either she did not kill or the deaths did not touch her; she is above all this, her face as serene as the boddhisatva Kannon. If she killed she made it swift and it did not touch her, for troubles wash over her and through her and do not change her nature. Juubei cannot look at the body. "This will all be taken care of." 

He cannot remember where the body went. It was gone when next he remembered to look at the spot where it had lain. It was necessary, he told himself. He did not kill because he could. He killed because he had no choice. The knowledge is cold comfort, but Juubei has grown accustomed to cold comfort, and Makubex's fingers are very cold. Kazuki was always warm, always present, the strong lines of his mucles giving his twice the presence of ordinary men. Juubei sometimes wonders if he has become a ghost, a hungry spirit who simply has not realized he is dead yet. 

"Of course you are still real," Makubex told him. Juubei could not, of course, contradict him. "You are as real as I am. Quite possibly more so."

The words were still reassuring, none the less so for being spoken in a dream, for Juubei of course would not ask this of Makubex in waking life. "Thank you, my lord," he said, and only then did the full import of the sentence come to him. "But you must be more real than I am. You still have your heart." 

"Not really," Makubex said, and pulled open his shirt to reveal an empty space in his chest, red on the edges. 

Juubei awoke far too slowly to find Makubex regarding him with some concern. The dream had been more real than his waking days have been, more certain and solid. "Makubex," he said, and was obscurely glad that he had not asked for anyone else. The lights of the computer flicker and begin to turn on and off in what Juubei is certain is a pattern, but he cannot fathom what rules they follow. 

He is astonished to realize that it has been more than a year, and he did not even realize. He has long since forgotten the day of the year, and next to go will be the year itself, then the hours, if he had them to begin with. 

When the autumn arrives again there are no more challengers to Makubex's rule. 

There is a woman in the South Block market, an old woman who makes soup and speaks largely in proverbs and cliches. She always pressed her wares on Juubei, insisting that he needed it. One day he passes by her stall and she is not there. He astonished himself by panicking, asking everyone nearby if they had seen her. He realized at some point that despite the three years he had eaten her food, he knew neither her name nor her address. Eventually he got the address and ran to it, arriving panting and shivering, and when he found her door locked he pounded on it, driven by a terror he cannot name. 

It opened in a few seconds, the woman herself behind her, her face pale and eys red, but wide open, living. "Come in, boy," she said. "You look like there's a demon on your trail." 

"I thought you - " He could not explain, so he leaned against the doorframe and took deep breaths, his eyes focusing on her face, where the regular rhythym of her breath can be seen in the shudder of her cheeks. 

"I'm sick," she told him, "so you'd better not come too close. But it'll pass." She shrugged and pulled her shawl tighter around her shoulders; Juubei thought of his sister, and wondered if her calm serenity would pass someday into this grim acceptance of fate, this determination that the world would not remain so wrong. But it has; time has been out of joint for a year. A year and a half. "All things pass. There's some bread in the oven, if you want it." Juubei nodded, and closed the door behind him. He walked toward her kitchen in a daze. This is a nice place, he though. The paint was faded, but it was almost disturbingly clean, the cleanliness of a fanatic. Cleanliness is next to godliness. 

He mumbled thanks to her around the warm bread, and she declined his offer to find medicine, insisting that there was nothing for it but to rest, and eat soup. Hadn't she always told him it was healthy? The illness would pass in time. All things pass. 

Makubex noted his relief. "If she had been dead," he told Juubei upon his return, "I could have told you. If she had needed help, I could have sent it. You could have asked me for her address." 

"I'm sorry," Juubei says. "I shouldn't have gone without - " 

Makubex shook his head. "It's alright," he said. "If you are needed, I can always find you. It would be an act of supreme cruelty to deny you friendship." Juubei compares this remark with the acts of cruelty that he has seen Makubex perform, and is not sure how to respond. "You're mine, so the welfare of those you care about is my business. Even casual friends." The boy's voice softens, and he looks away. "And she had done nobody any harm, and many people good." 

When was the last time Makubex went outside, walked in the marketplace? Ate from her ever-simmering cauldron? It seems to Juubei that these days the boy subsists on nothing but enough chocolate candies to satisfy a small bird, and even those Sakura presses on him, with the anxiety of a mother indulging a sick child. 

He loses sight of the thoughts, as the raids begin in earnest, and he forgets that he has lost the taste for bloodshed. It is a taste never completely forgotten, unlike some. He cannot remember the taste of Kazuki's lips, and he almost never thinks of Kazuki these days. He does not recall with each precise blossom of blood the way Kazuki would move, like a dancer, the way his strings would draw taught around their enemies. He does not compare the tension of those threads to the soft billows of Sakura's cloth, or the waves of Emishi's whip, so swift as to be imperceptible, or to the sudden cracks in reality of Kagami's shattered mirrors. 

There are those, too, who fight with their fists, sometimes elegantly, sometimes inelegantly, making up for in blunt muscle what Uryuu Toshiki managed with grace and the power of his spirit. Juubei thinks as he watches two monsters fade into nothingness at his feet that he has not seen Uryuu in years. He wandered off and left, and Juubei cannot even recall when they last spoke. He is astonished that the thought is a wistful one. There had been no love lost between them, but the respect of comrades, yes, there was something of that, and now he has gone, somewhere unremembered and elsewhere, out into the world that Makubex has said does not exist. Like Raitei. This is the only real place, Makubex told him, and pressed a hand against the planes of his hip. This is the only real place, and the world beyond is is nothing more than an assemblage of dreams. This is the only place we can keep existing. 

Juubei is aware of the possibility of his own death; it is one he has never dreaded. It is only right that he should be prepared to lay down his life for his master. He prefers to do it on the field of battle, but these monsters, however terrible their visage is, are no match for those fighters Makubex has assembled. He has his honor, too. He does not mind offering his enemies such an honorable death. 

When the battle is over, he hears Emishi laughing, always laughing. There is something terrible in it, there has always been something terrible in it, for Emishi is a man with something to protect, something to watch over, and Juubei has nothing anymore, except for Makubex. 

"I've never met your family," he told Emishi, as they retreated, abandoning the street to the scavengers. 

Emishi blinked, pulled from his lingering frenzy by the sudden remark. "Never? Gee, do you want to?" His face developed a stupid grin. "Aww, Juubei-han, so _soon_! Why, we havn't even kissed yet ..." He trailed off, the jokes as always falling into the silent seriousness Juubei carries. Briefly he scowled, then tucked away his whip and laced his fingers behind his head. 

"I do," Juubei answered. _I want to know what it is you depend on._

"Sure thing. You can even have dinner with us." 

Strictly speaking he's the last of the Emishis, the joker explained as they wandered down the alleyways. Juubei wonders if that was why he used his family name so readily, when in most respects he is horrifically informal. But with intermarriages and such, most everyone left is some sort of cousin, relatively close, and of course it's love that really matters. 

He is not suprised that most of them are women, or young children. Not all are present, in the warren of half-seperated rooms that is their living space, but it is still hard to believe these are the remnants of a mighty tribe, that ruled a city, and sent armies against their enemies. So many enemies. Emishi shrugs. "The wind changed," he says, and will not touch the subject again. Instead he introduces everyone, so quickly Juubei cannot recall the names. 

One girl, who could be a teenager but with a child's soft steps, came up to them and touched his face. "Are you Juubei?" she asked. "Kakei Juubei?"

"Yes." She wasn't there at the whirlwind introduction; Juubei thought she might have been hidden behind a door. There were plenty of hiding places even inside here, although the room seemed to have been some sort of warehouse, airy and lit from windows all around; a dozen smells competed for attention, from the sharp tang of chopped onions to the softness of laundry soap, none of them the dusty smell of abandonment that pervaded so many buildings in Mugenjou. 

"Emishi's told us about you," she says, and giggles. "He says you're a samurai." 

Juubei does not know how to respond. 

The girl suddenly, with the quickness of a whipcrack, wraps her arms around his shoulders. She is shorter than he, but not by so much the embrace is difficult. "Thank you," she whispers. "For helping protect us. You're so brave." And she draws back almost as quickly and lowers her lashes, and suddenly she does not look very like a child at all. Her dark hair hangs loose about her shoulders, except for one piece, tied in a ribbon beside her face, which she lifts a hand to play with. "You're so handsome, too ..." 

"Hey!" Emishi barges between them, making doe-eyes at the girl, and once again Juubei is struck dumb. "I thought you said I was your one and only, Midori-yan! Don't you love me anymore? Alas! My heart is broken, for - " 

"Oh, can't I have two?" And the girl giggles and is suddenly a girl again. "I've got some strawberry candy," she imparts, leaning in, a secret just for the three of them. "I'll bring you some." And she vanishes, as quick as she appeared. 

Emishi turns and waves a hand in front of Juubei's face. "Hey? You okay?" 

"I'm fine," Juubei says, his mind still somewhere else, long ago. "How old is she?" 

"She'll be fourteen next month." Emishi pats Juubei on the shoulder. "Too young for you, Juubei-han." Juubei shakes his head and does not argue. He sits through dinner like a sleepwalker, although everyone is pleased to see him, and presses food on him, and welcomes him as one of the family. 

Makubex admitted quite readily, when Juubei asked, that he was thirteen. Juubei, for the first time, asked for some sort of comfort, and Makubex gave it to him, with his hands so small and certain and the gentleness that never reached his eyes. 

"It won't be long now," he promised Juubei. "A year, at the most. Everything is falling into place, just as I expected it would." He held Juubei's hand with both of his own, looked at him with eyes burning with passionate determination. "Just as it was written." It is the look in those eyes that Juubei remembers, the greenish reflection in the darkness. Makubex keep speaking, but Juubei cannot make out the individual words and they cease to have any importance. His voice fades into static, coming from a very long way away. A year seems like a very long time, but the year before took no time at all. 

When winter comes on it comes hard and sudden, burying the streets in dirty gray snow that seems out of place. Juubei cannot remember another winter so cold. Tokyo, Makubex told him once, is a heat island. People living and heating their homes and driving their cars and covering the ground with black asphalt, all this changes things. Even in Mugenjou there should not be snow piling up like this. Sakura wraps herself in her shawl whenever she goes outside, and checks in on the older people, making sure they have heaters or at least blankets. Somehow, they do. No one goes cold. Even in the most dilapadated buildings the electricity is working, and somehow, there are more electric blankets and tiny woodstoves and space heaters than seems possible in a place so poor. The old woman who makes soup reveals how she found an space heater in the empty apartment next door, when she had gone there to look for extra blankets for her bed. She found those too, and not moth-eaten wrecks, but a plastic tub full of clean fleeces. 

"Lucky," Sakura says, and the tone of her voice does not betray any suspicion. 

Juubei decides not to think about it. There's no reason people shouldn't be lucky. 

Some time later Makubex called him in, he and Kagami. At least, Kagami appeared at the same time as him. "We're going hunting," he said. "A group from the West Block have taken to stealing food from some of the children's groups. It's not rebellion, but it can't be tolerated, not now." This is not the thing the Lightning Emperor would have done. He would have tried diplomacy first, pleaded with them not to do harm. Juubei reminded himself that he did not know what Makubex had tried already, and Kagami laughed into his sleeve. 

_We're going hunting_ , Makubex had said. Juubei still found himself surprised when Makubex ascended the stairs to the street with them. The snow landed on his jacket and scarf and gloves and did not melt. 

When it was all over Makubex walked up to the head of the thugs, who cowered , trying to crawl backwards but unable to move, his scarred face looking only repulsive rather than terrifying. There were so many witnesses, everyone who had been in the West Block market, people bundled up against the cold and watching, shivering and huddling together. Kagami was still there, leaning against a pillar, his smile the same as it ever had been. Makubex didn't seem to care. 

It was impossible to tell if the man beneath him was shaking from cold or fear. "Hey, hey," he was saying. "A man has to eat." 

"Yes," Makubex said, and then his hand moved fast, so fast even Juubei could hardly see it. He had not known Makubex was carrying a knife, but the knife is there, buried in the left eye of the man, who gurgles and falls back to the street, very suddenly and inarguably dead. "But to steal from children who are already starving is unforgivable." He retrieves his knife, wipes it on the dead man's clothing, makes it vanish again. There are drops of blood on his clothing, but not many, considering. The people are still watching. No one moves. 

Makubex's words seemed to echo against the shells of the buildings, even though Juubei knew the echo was muffled by the snow. His clothes were pale shades of blue and purple and the snowflakes melting too slowly on his cheek only added to the impression of an ice sculpture. "I trust you will dispose of this properly," he told the witnesses, and stepped away. 

"That was cruel," Kagami remarked, as they faded into the alleyway. 

"No," Makubex told him. "It was too kind. He didn't suffer at all. But that sort of thing can't be condoned. I'm not Raitei. I won't offer mercy to my enemies." 

"But he wasn't _your_ enemy." The words were too light and casual and Juubei wanted very badly to hit Kagami. 

Makubex just shook his head. "Anyone who would cause harm to the people of Lower Town is my enemy. Rightful prey, if you prefer." He looked tired and dirty and very human. Kagami did seem to prefer it; his smile grew sharper. He had vanished before they returned to the computer room. 

It had been a few seasons since Makubex had gone outside and done such a thing himself. That spring he had done it, again and again, and the summer before. It was necessary, he had explained to Juubei, that such things not be allowed to occur. When Raitei had ruled there had been so much let slip. Petty theivery and random assaults and occasional rapes, things that happened unnoticed or whose perpetrators could never be found, criminals who had promised to reform and who had been trusted to keep their promise. No more of that. It wouldn't do. Anyone who threatened his peace would die. Those who oppoed his rule must surrender or die. 

Juubei had wondered, then, if it was necessary for Makubex to perform the executions himself, if it would not be just as effective for them to be defeated in battle, or for some other of his servants to kill them. Makubex had smiled, and said, _It is better to be feared than loved._ Juubei was so grateful he had not been asked to kill helpless people himself he had ignored his misgivings, and so Makubex had taken prisoners to some public space and made sure that people were watching as he killed them. Generally it was swift, but once, a man whose sin Makubex had stated as _assaults upon several girls_ , it was so slow Juubei had been sick afterwards.

That was what happened to those who threatened his subjects. To those who threatened Makubex himself, who attempted rebellion or betrayed him after pledging their loyalty, and who were not killed as soon as their attempt was made - those, nobody knew what happened to them. They were never seen again, except for one, who was found in an alley several months later, seeminlgy unharmed, but babbling mindlessly of dark doors, and insensible of the bright world around him. That man lived for most of a week, in the care of the girl who found him, until he tried to put his eyes out and pushed too far. 

Juubei does not speculate upon such things. His loyalty is absolute. Besides, if someone wishes to leave, and says so openly, Makubex will let them go. He has seen it happen, once or twice. Exile is perhaps a better fate than whatever has happened to those people who just vanished. To Makubex, it is all the same, anyway. The only difference is whether they go to a pleasant or unpleasant dream. 

When the snow finally melts the cold does not vanish from anyone's eyes. 

Sakura knows what is happening, what Makubex is planning. "Don't worry, brother," she tells Juubei. "Trust in Makubex." Her hands are as gentle as his, but far warmer, and the softness of her blanket is familiar and reassuring. 

Most of his servants are drawing away, or he is sending them away; there are only five now whom he allows to remain close, to see him in person, and everyone else is sent messages, never given the chance to ask questions. Juubei and Sakura, of course, are with him most of the time now. "You two," he says, "I can trust, no matter what happens." They are silent in their acquiesence. 

Emishi cracks jokes, bitterly determined to make the best of the situation. His laughter is never anything but mad now. "What do you think will happen?" he asked Juubei. "What's he up to?"

"I don't know," Juubei said. "We have to trust him."

Emishi didn't answer. 

Kagami was there more often; more often, Juubei suspected, than he could be seen. He did not know what Makubex saw in Kagami; Juubei saw only an enigma, an unknown danger, a way for their enemies to see their plans. Makubex said to him that even though Kagami was one of those from above, even though it was impossible to know his loyalties - he was necessary. Utterly necessary. 

Juubei doesn't understand, but he is not required to understand, only to obey; he is only a servant, only and always a servant. He has asked once; he will be silent henceforth. He does not bother to disguise his contempt for Kagami; he does not know what Kagami thinks of him. 

The last of those whom Makubex keeps close is a man who seems to have arrived long ago, but who Juubei does not remember; a man with a missing eye and a prosthetic arm and a terrifying expression, who wants only one thing. "I want him too," Makubex says. "But Fudou can go first." He is as always gracious, willing to wait for what he knows will be his eventually. Fudou stays near but never as near as the others; Makubex asks very little of him. "It will be enough that he will obey me when the time comes," Makubex says, and his hands hover over the keyboards, seeking the shape of a prophecy. 

"What time?" Sakura asks him, and because she is Sakura she is allowed to ask; Juubei does not know what is between them but she claims the privleges of her position with graceful ease. 

"The time when this struggle will finally end," Makubex said. "When at last all the pieces are in place, and Babylon City will no longer be our oppressors." He smiled, then, and named a date, five months away, in August. 

Until then, he said, things would be peaceful. 

Juubei still went outside every day, making sure that the peace endured. It was a quiet spring, and a quieter summer. No one fought. No one rose against them. People would not meet his eyes; he wondered if it was simply that his eyes were invisible behind the visor, or if they were afraid of him, because he was Makubex's lieutenant. He did not speak more than necessary; sometimes they would offer him food and he would accept it, wordlessly, and take it back to Makubex's room. There was never any difficulty in finding food, not for those who served Makubex, although Makubex himself only ate when Sakura forced the food on him. It was astonishing he had not wasted away to nothingness. His hands were small and thin and Juubei was sure they were thinner than they had been; they touched him with the same surety as ever, and ran through his hair, and Makubex whispered assurances into his ear, that they would be free, at last, that he had found a weapon that those above would not be able to ignore. 

The world always seemed less real when Makubex was touching him. 

Once or twice there were attacks, small battles. They were not creatures of the Beltline, or rebels from Lower Town, but thugs from outside Mugenjou altogether. They came in moving like aliens, and Makubex spotted them and sent out his weakest troops to deal with them. They're bad dreams, he told Juubei, as they watched together on his monitors. Even fools like Magami and his gang can deal with bad dreams. He smiled as he said it, and sure enough, the thugs did not fight to the death, but turned and ran when it became clear they were outmatched, fleeing back into the outside world. On the screen Magami laughed with glee, and swung his wrapped arms in the air, proclaiming the supremacy of his enhancements; his followers cheered with him, their over-muscled arms pulsing as they danced at the edge, unwilling to give chase any further. Makubex just shook his head. Fools, he said. Fools, all. 

The monitors could not transmit the stench of sweat on their skin but Juubei knew it was there. It was the height of summer, except that below ground in Makubex's room it was still a little too cold, always a little too cold. Juubei spent most of his time there, these days. 

All he had to do was wait, and Makubex would tell him what to do. 

He had not realized he was counting down the days, but at last, seven days before the date Makubex had given as the end, Makubex rose from his computers and said, "Juubei. Sakura. There is something I need you to do. Something I can entrust only to you." 

Juubei nodded as he stood, and found his hands already running down his needles. "Of course," Sakura said, but did not stand up. She fixed her eyes on him, and he nodded. 

"It's of vital importance," Makubex continued. "It's the thing on which our plan depends. Everything is ready for it; it's just a question of finding this last piece, and then doing the compile." 

Sakura's hand reached toward him, and he caught it halfway, kissed her fingertips. "Tell me, Sakura," he murmured. "You would do anything I asked of you, right?" 

"Of course I would," Sakura murmurs, her voice small, falling into the darkness around them and vanishing. Juubei finds his hands tightening in the fabric of his jeans. 

"Even if I asked you to do something that would hurt you?" With those words Makubex bit down on her finger until blood welled up and stained his lips red. 

Sakura did not cry out, or tug her hand away. "Anything." 

"Even if I asked you to die for me?" 

"It would be an honor." 

Makubex smiled and licked apologetically at her finger, clutching her hand with both of his. "And the same goes for Juubei, of course. But why is that so? Why would you go so far for me?" 

"Because you are my liege-lord," Sakura said, her words still dropping like stones into the darkness. "I have sworn to follow you. I made that oath because I knew you were worthy of it, and you have acted only for the good of your people." 

Makubex's smile was unreadable. 

They walk out to the place he had indicated, and take their places on opposite sides of the room, fading into the shadows. After an hour or so, other people come in, three men with guns surrounding a man in a suit and a bulletproof vest clutching a metal case; his eyes flickered around the room, but never rest on them. They have made themseleves invisible. The men fall into position, their guns fanning out, alert for any sign of a threat to the man in the center. 

Now is not the moment. Wait until they are both there, Makubex said, and have made the exchange. They will be off their guard then. 

The men speak little, meaningless sentences about how dirty the room is. At last the other door opens and three people enter, a woman in a neat pantsuit and two tall guards clutching long, shining swords. Hired help, Juubei esitmates. The woman walks over to the men with guns, her shoes clicking on the ground, and says, "I've come for what we agreed." 

"Password," says the man with the case, nervously. He has a thick accent. 

"Sunshine," the woman answered, and the man nodded. He opened the case, revealing what looked like an oversized data disc; the woman took it and held it close to herself, and the man, nervously, closed the case again and pulled out a two-way radio. 

The woman, as well, pulled out a cell phone. She didn't speak, just pushed a number of buttons. Juubei couldn't hear what the man said over the radio, but it seemed to satisfy him. At last he nodded to the men with guns, and the four of them left the room, huddled together and still looking everywhere. 

"Let's go," the woman told the two guards with swords, and that was the moment. Right then. Juubei stepped forward and made his move, on the right-hand guard, and Sakura's cloth had already wrapped around the other, holding his sword against his body and leaving a red line on his throat. 

The woman pulled a hand-gun out of her pocket and made wild shots in each direction. Neither stood a chance of hitting. Juubei left the guard bleeding on the floor and knocked the woman against the wall, holding his needles against her throat. 

"I'm sorry," Sakura says, and plucks the disc from the woman's unresisting hands. "Makubex needs this more than you do." Her shawl had already retreated from the other guard, who lay clutching at his throat and making no effort to pick up his dropped sword. Juubei idly tossed the gun to the other side of the room, and pressed his needle against the right spot to send the woman into deep unconciousness; it was necessary, Makubex said, that they escape, to tell what had happened, and be able to say _Makubex took it_. 

Sakura tucks the disc under her shawl as they return. When she hands it to Makubex he folds his hands over it like a holy relic, and his face lights up with a smile that Juubei sincerely wishes never to see again. "Thank you," he tells them, so sincerely. "Everything is in place, on the other side. Now we have to prepare from our side." 

He calls Emishi and Fudou in then and gives them instructions, which seem to relate mostly to finding other people and passing instructions on to them. The words wash over Juubei's ears and he wonders if Kagami is there, laughing at them. It would not be impossible, except for that smile. 

Finally everyone was gone and Makubex thanked them again, quietly, and then got up and vanished behind the doors marked with his name, still holding the disc against his breast. "My Lens," he said, to himself. "The last piece of the puzzle." For a moment Juubei saw lights winking like the reflections of hundreds of eyes, things lurking in the darkness, but then the doors shut and the moment vanished. 

"We'll be ready," Sakura says. 

Seven days cannot pass quickly enough. 

Makubex spoke little, and spent long hours working on his computer. Even Sakura had given up her attempts to care for him, for anyone, only sitting beside him serene and patient, her eyes full of faith. Juubei, as well, was patient. He had waited two years. Two and a half. He could wait seven days. It was not until the morning before that Makubex finally told him, "Kazuki will be with them." 

"I don't care," Juubei said, and his hands tightened. "He betrayed us all. He _left_." 

Makubex looked sad as he nodded. "I'll leave him to you, then," he said. "In recompense for his betrayal." 

Sakura said nothing. Sakura had only ever had one lover, and that lover had never betrayed her. Juubei was fairly certain, now, that they had never touched, never shared that intensity he had known once with Kazuki, never had and never would. Kazuki's would not be the only death that day. But whatever was between them did not admit outsiders or questions. 

It made no difference to him now. He had his purpose, standing before him in simple words.

Makubex took pity on Juubei then, and sent Sakura away. He pulled Juubei close to him, and for a moment he looked very young, and very tired. _One day. One day left._ "Not much longer," he whispered, and his hands on Juubei's back did not remind Juubei of anyone in particular. "You've given me so much. You'll get your reward." He pressed his face against Juubei's shoulder for a while and held him close, reassuringly. Juubei remembered what Makubex had said so long ago - _you won't be left behind again._

He wouldn't allow it. Wherever Makubex went Juubei would follow. 

When they were done Makubex smiled again, and called his faithful servants together. "Tonight," he told them, "is the end. I'll bring sunlight back into this forsaken world." 

Emishi laughed, and Makubex nodded at him. "You'll all get what you wanted," he promised them. "Before dawn tomorrow. Rest now, if you want. You'll need your strength tonight." 

Fudou growled, and his strident voice broke in, "I want Midou. I want to rip his arms off, I want to taste his blood, I want - " 

"You'll have him," Makubex promised. "Be patient." 

They left, one by one. Juubei remained. He looked at Makubex, a dark shape against the green of the scrolling code, and watched him reach out, press a key, smile as the drives whirred into life. Words sprung up on the screen, in a language Juubei could not read. "Come and see, Ginji-san," Makubex declared, proud and terrible. "Come and see." 

There was silence in that room then, for hours altogether. 

At last Makubex rose from his watchful quiet and turned to Sakura. "I'm not doing wrong, am I?" he said to her, and for a moment she did not answer and Juubei wondered if she meant to tell him that he was, to draw him back from the edge of the abyss, even now, but that would be an act of supreme selfishness and Sakura did not commit it. "Of course not," was all she said. 

Makubex's hands flew over the keyboard, opened up the view from a camera. There were seven figures framed in the screen. "They're just outside," he said, and Juubei's eyes focused on one of the seven. Kazuki. There was no mistaking him; he hadn't changed at all, as beautiful as he had been when they were children. 

They watched for a while, and then Makubex smiled at him and told him where to go, and he went. 

Kazuki was not expecting the blow. He was distracted. He was fighting Lady Poison, whose body was no longer her own, and so Juubei's needles struck him when he least expected. He was still aware enough to dodge, and so they struck him in the side instead of the heart. He calls out Juubei's name. 

The sun was bright, there, in the open alley; brighter than it had any right to be. Kazuki's face was in shadow. This, then, is what has become of a promise hundreds of years old. It ies in tatters between them, like the memory of a childhood game.

"Even you joined Makubex?" The words are barely audible, between his gasps of pain. 

"Yes," Juubei answers. 

Kazuki stands up, then, and runs for it. He cannot truly run, injured as he is. His movements, once so graceful, are tinged with pain, and the white cloth tied around his hair is spotted with red blood. He staggers, heading for the enclosed spcae of a hallway stacked with bags of flour; Juubei pauses to retrieve his needles, then follows Kazuki, walking slowly, taking his time. Kazuki cannot run fast enough to escape him now. He's been waiting for this moment for two and a half years. Although it would be unworthy to draw it out and savor it - he will have little enough time for reminiscence - still there is no point in hastening Kazuki's death, which is now inevitable. He steps inside the hallway, and there is a cloud of flour dust blocking his way. He coughs, grateful for his sunglasses. He can see the shape of the next instant and even as he sees it it happens - a blossoming of flame in front of him, his hands moving before his face instinctivly for a shield and the feeling of the hair on his arms crinkling with heat. The purifying fire, he thinks. Makubex spoke of bringing light back into the world. This is his light. 

But he staggers back and he is still living. 

There is no question. Death by pride, he thinks. _He'd rather kill himself than die at my hand._

Makubex's voice seems to come from a very long way away. "Good work, Juubei-kun," it is saying. 

It was a good plan, Juubei admits. It worked. It gave him a swift victory. Still, he could have defeated Kazuki without help. 

"But you understand you work for me now," Makubex's voice is asking him, and Juubei agrees. He doesn't have to worry about it now. He doesn't have to worry about anything now. All that's necessary is that he follow Makubex's orders, and they will have their answer, soon, very soon, before the next sunrise. 

He picks up Lady Poison, gently, because he respects her abilities, and carries her to the prison; she will be needed later. He does not know if he himself will be needed later, but if Makubex does not want him any more he will be sent away. 

Juubei was not very sure what happened then, but it hardly mattered. 

_Do you know why I had you attack him?_ Makubex said to him. _Your closest friend. I wanted to test your loyalty._

He realizes, some time later, that the battle he is about to fight is against Kazuki, again. At first it seems unreal, but then for hours now he has wondered why he was still living; even as he fought Raitei he fought expecting to wake up and realize he had been dead since his last image of Kazuki, that he had given his life for Makubex as he had promised. 

He can see, now, the images moving across the screen, the eyes of the camera that reach everywhere. Kazuki is there, living and breathing and seeming not even badly hurt. Juubei wonders if it was a dream, the attack he made, the test of his loyalty. Did he fail the test? But if he had, Makubex would not have let him go forth against Raitei, and that test he did fail, he is certain. But there is Kazuki, whole and well. _I promised you,_ Makubex tells them all, _that we would build a new world._

Juubei looks at the figure again. _So you survivied, Kazuki._

Twenty minutes later Juubei walks through a door that appears from nowhere, with Emishi beside him, and takes his place to wait. Emishi had been the last to leave. Juubei does not know what words they exchanged, but whatever he said Emishi is not smiling, not laughing, and Juubei is grateful for that. He could not bear that, if this battle were too heavy to do anything but make light of. 

"Hey, Juubei-han," Emishi says to him as they take their places. "You have your sister, right? You have someone to watch over." 

Juubei shakes his head. "Sakura can watch over herself," he says. 

Emishi hangs his head. "Somehow I suspected that." His hands shift on the handle of his whip. "You know, Juubei-han, my mother died when I was very young. I didn't forgive her for it for a long time. But she died because of me. You know how things are here. She died to protect me." 

Juubei looks away. 

"I don't want to do that to anyone," Emishi says. "But it's worse not too, don't you think?" 

"It's not wrong to die for the sake of the one you love," Juubei answers. "Even if it hurts them. The living can heal." 

Emishi nods, as if he had expected that answer. 

It is hardly any time before he hears again the voice that he thought he would never hear, Kazuki's voice, calling out, asking for their names, to find them in the dark. 

Who cares about names? Emishi says, just words to carve on our tombstones. And he is not smiling as he says it. Juubei makes his move at the same time, and the two of them together, he thinks, perhaps can do what Juubei alone could not. They have nothing left but the desire to achieve victory. 

Except that Emishi had his people. 

And Juubei has family too, still living, but he left them behind in the name of a promise that Kazuki broke, and so he has nothing left, and his own, Juubei is sure, will be one of the deaths that decorate this night. 

When Shido appears he is glad, because now he can die on his own terms. One against one; that's only right. He knows what Emishi wanted, now. They had more in common than he suspected. He waits as the light appears from behind him. Sunlight, in the deeps of Mugenjou. This is what Makubex has found, has created, has given to them. So Juubei and Kazuki wait and watch, bearing witness to the ending that Emishi has chosen. Juubei is glad of it, distantly, that the equation works out so neatly.

The explosion of blood is as bright as another sun. _He knows. Life is the least we could give._

Kazuki is looking at Juubei now, his face horrified. He calls out Juubei's name, and the word itself sounds like it causes him pain. Kazuki is not fragile, but he is gentle, and soft, and this idea is foriegn to him, that Emishi, like Juubei, would spend the last drop of his blood to complete the plans that Makubex has laid in place. But it isn't going to work. Shido has saved him. Shido has shown compassion even at the cost of defeat. Juubei does not know why he is pleased that Emishi should live even when he was ready to die. He should not be. He should not allow himself such a weakness as emotion now. They walk out of the room together, and vanish, waking up together. 

And so Shido has taken himself out of the fight. Ruled by his pathetic, useless emotions. 

"Useless?" Kazuki's hair has fallen in his eyes, keeping them in shadow. Juubei has no answer, and he readies himself. "Even after I left Mugenjou I still considered you my best friend," Kazuki tells him. 

"I never thought about you," Juubei answers. 

When Kazuki lifts his head his eyes are burning. 

Juubei dodges the first attack easily. This is as it should be. This is the path he has chosen. It is not a long path, but he knows what lies at the end and that is the way things should be. Kazuki is his, and so Kazuki will die at his hands and no other. After that, he will follow. Makubex will not begrudge him this. He understands. He knows that this far, and no further, is the limit of Juubei's strength. Juubei cannot live in a world that does not have Kazuki in it. 

They move simultaineously, and for a moment the world is nothing but white noise, static, crackles of dust against a backdrop of brightness. 

This is the only real place, Makubex says, the world outside is just a dream. 

When the world becomes real again Juubei realizes he has lost his visor, and his shirt is torn. The unexpected light nearly blinds him. The world flickers for a moment, then settles into itself, still a little too full of sunlight. That has been a defining feature of this encounter. The sky over Mugenjou is gray and lifeless even when it is blue and full of summer breeze, but in here, in this world that does not truly exist, the light is bright and true, and the world is full of colors, orange and red and gold, and this, he is sure, is the real world, at the heart of everything. "Why, Juubei?" Kazuki asks, and for all the things he has seen he should be able to see one more. Just one more. He's seen things he should never have seen, let him see this, 

now, at the end. 

And Kazuki, at least, had realized the truth, had found Makubex's answer, that same answer that Makubex had revealed to the most loyal of his servants. Their shadows stood beside them, silent witness. 

Makubex smiles at Juubei, and Juubei cannot see his eyes. Those above are watching us, he says, and everything we do, we do under their sufferance. Our destinies are already laid out.

To a certain point. 

I'll bring the sunlight back. They'll turn back time, turn aside fate, rather than let it take this course which would destroy them, destroy everything. This precious thing - this precious thing that you have brought me - that will be the lens. This is the central component of a nuclear bomb. That much light will be enough. We're not really living, not as long as Babylon City standa above us, but I have seen their prophecies and I will burn them to the ground. _I promise you_ , Makubex says, and his voice echoes across the hall. The future has already been decided, and so it is written, and so it will all arrive at one single point, and I'll erase it. 

Kazuki's eyes filled up with pain. 

"You should understand," Juubei told him, voice steady, held in readiness. "You sought out those above. You challenged the mysteries of Babylon City. I'm not fighting you, my friend. The one I'm fighting is the monster from above - the one who looks down on us with a smile as he controls our every move!" He looked down from above as he cried out, his needles falling like rain, and the sun shining into Kazuki's face and hiding it. "Makubex prophecied he'd win us our freedom! I beleive in that vision!" 

Juubei had nothing left but that, and he could live on faith for a few minutes. It would only take a few. The rain of spear-sharp strings on his skin was as welcome as a sudden drink of water to a man in the desert. 

_Juubei, don't you understand? Makubex must_ know _the deal won't work, yet he still has you all on his side ..._ The words seemed to be coming from somewhere very far away. Juubei felt a little dizzy, but he was still standing, and so was Kazuki, and really, this battle should have already been over, but it seems that those above enjoy the show, want them to suffer, want them to keep going until they are numb with despair (as if they weren't already) and then and only then to die. 

_At least we'll die together,_ Juubei thought. _That's all I ask for. Together._ He knew that this was important, but he could not help but remember, Makubex's smile that vanished two and a half years ago, and the echo as he said to them, the ones who were so determined, _Come and see_. 

"Makubex's true goal is to pass the final judgement himself!" 

Of course. Makubex went into this battle expecting to lose, except that there was no way for Makubex to lose this battle. If there is no more Mugenjou then they will be free. That, too, is victory. 

Kazuki's hair glinted in the sun as he pushed himself upright, and Juubei waited for the next step. His limbs were numb, and he could feel the tremors of magnetism in the air. He gave it five minutes, ten at the outside, before his body failed him. There were already tiny spots in front of his eyes, either from looking too hard at the sun, or from the effects of the lodestone, exertion combined with exhaustion and the weakest points failed first. His sight was his weak point, and in here it was brighter than anywhere he had been since Raitei left. This is the after-image of the lightning two and a half years late, or of the bomb, an hour early. Blood trickled down his cheek. Juubei noticed that there were tears in Kazuki's eyes.

_"Juubei ..."_

The needles rose from the earth like a cyclone. Juubei found himself coughing. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and saw the red spots in between the black, and his mouth tasted of tears. Kazuki was clutching at his shoulder. His hair spread out behind him in the breeze, tattered shadows, half-hidden in the dust. 

"You don't have the time to dodge the next volley," Juubei told Kazuki, and he tried to compose himself, to focus on Kazuki's face as the darkness spread across his vision. The world gleamed with color, trying its best to fill up the shadows, the most beautiful and brightest thing. Somewhere a bell rang, a clear note that could not have come from 

anywhere real. 

_Kazuki_ , Juubei did not say, and Kazuki answered, "You lose, Kakei Juubei." 

Except this is not a battle he can lose, because it is a battle against those above, and all is in accord with the fate that will inevitably lead to the dissolution of fate, and so he can only win. He will die at Kazuki's hands. That, too, is victory. 

"Let's end this, Juubei." Kazuki's voice is not the voice of Kazuki of the Strings, the Prince of Battle Terror. There is nothing in it but kindness. "I can't kill you." Kazuki means this. He would not lie, not here. "You've been my best friend since I was young." As if it mattered, in the face of the sun which will fade the red thread that binds them, crumple it into dust. 

"Don't be naive! We're no longer kids! I'd kill you without even thinking!" And Juubei is not thinking as he moves the lodestone one last time, and the black needles rise from the dust and Kazuki says something of which Juubei hears only his name, and the needles find their mark. Perfectly. 

He doesn't feel it. His senses have long since become incapable of feeling anything but the painful tug of the lodestone. The blood seems to appear from nowhere, blossoming red and black across his field of vision. 

"Juubei," Kazuki said, and then he screamed it. 

Juubei would like to look at him, because his vision has gone clear again, for a moment, the black vanishing into the red blotches of his blood. He doesn't know where the lodestone has gone. It is no longer in his hand, but Kazuki's fingers are and he tightens his hand on them. "Why, Juubei - why did you - " 

"Because you didn't kill me when I asked you too," Juubei answers. "The only worthy punishment for a fool is death. I betrayed my friend."

There is no sin worse than betrayal; all sins, in their way, are aspects of that one. I'll never leave you behind, Makubex said to him. His hands were as cold as death and he meant every word he said. No, that wasn't what he said at all. _You won't be left behind again_ , those were his words, true words, and he must have known, even then, because Juubei cannot live in a world that does not have Kazuki in it, and he never meant to be left behind, because he meant to follow after. But this is better. He should have known it. There is so much pain in Kazuki's voice that Juubei is in pain himself to hear it. But his muscles have gone numb; he could not move a hand if he wanted to. "I'm not worthy of your tears," he says, but they do not stop. 

When he was a child he and Kazuki would sit together in the sunlight, and he remembers Kazuki's laughter. They were happy then, innocent and naive and old-fashioned and childish, and full of such joy it would take a lifetime to remember it all. That all happened in a dream. The world outside is a dream, and it is a better one, and kinder, than the real world, and he was born in that dream, grew up there, and maybe he was never real to begin with, not like Makubex is. He doesn't mind. There are worse things to be than a good dream. 

"Juubei, hang on," and he feels himself being lifted, Kazuki's shoulder under his arm, the strength he had almost forgotten. "I'm getting you to a doctor." 

He tries to shake his head. "Don't be stupid, Kazuki - you have work to do." 

"Juubei, nothing is more important than your life right now." 

Juubei looks over at him, and he is bloody and bruised and covered in dust, his hair hanging loose around his face, eyes creased with worry, but those eyes are still determined. The sun illuminates the picture for a moment, and Juubei is glad of it. The shadows are deepening and spilling over into his eyes and he keeps them trained on Kazuki's face as they approach the edge. 

"Use your mind's eye, Kazuki," Juubei says. "For people like us, this is nothing. You can do it." 

Kazuki smiles at him. 

He wants very much to close his eyes but he knows he has to hold on, just a few more seconds, as the blackness spreads across his vision and the cold numbness fills up his body. Kazuki's eyes are the last thing to disappear into the dark. 

\--

In the dark it would seem appropriate for Kazuki, or a dream of Kazuki, to be waiting, but at first there is nothing but empty space. Juubei waits for a while; he no longer can bring himself to act. 

Eventually, there are footsteps, a measured tread across what must be some kind of surface, although he cannot feel it. He does not rise to greet the newcomer. There is a pause, then a gentle thump as they sit down beside him. He can feel the strength, the _ki_ , and with a start he realized who it is: Uryuu Toshiki. 

Was Uryuu dead too? Had he waited here for Juubei, or was all this another dream? 

"This is a dream," Uryuu said gently. "I'm not really here." He rested one hand on Juubei's knee. 

Juubei didn't move; he didn't know what to do. "Am I still alive, then?" 

"Of course you are. You have something still to do." He cannot see it, and he does not know if the darkness is personal or universal here, but he knows what Uryuu's expression would be, stern anger and sadness in equal measure. "Do you really think that Makubex's plan is a good one?" 

Slowly, Juubei shook his head, then realized that the gesture was useless here. "No. But I swore to follow him." 

"You have. You followed him to the end of the world, and now you're free, if you want to be. From him, at least." Uryuu's voice is not the voice he should be hearing. This sort of logic is Makubex's, but Makubex is far away. 

Juubei shivers and wants to reach out, touch something, anything, but he won't. "And what about our freedom from those above? Will we ever get it?" 

"You will," Uryuu says, and this should be Makubex's voice, this sort of prophecy. "Be patient. Live on, and see. There are other ways, and Makubex will find them - you know what faith means. Better than I did." That is Uryuu's voice now, bitter and grim, and Juubei wonders what he means. That he left? But he never promised to stay, he only stayed, for a while. 

Juubei imagines a blossom of white light, obliterating everything, and then he remembers Kazuki's smile, the last thing he ever saw. The last thing he'll ever see. 

"I made a terrible mistake," he says. 

"Years ago," Uryuu says, and the gentle pressure of his hand leaves Juubei's leg, there is a rustle as he stands up. "But Kazuki will forgive you." 

Because it is Uryuu telling him this, he believes it. 

"Makubex is waiting for you," the voice says, and he is no longer sure who it belongs to, as it trails into the dark. "You still have time enough." 

\--

When Juubei awoke he did not at first realize it. He opened his eyes onto a black emptiness that still hurt to look at, and so he closed them again. Then he heard a voice he had not heard for hours, but hours that stretched like years in his memory. 

"Thank you," it said. "You're very kind." 

There was an answering laugh, and another voice, one he took long seconds to recognize as that of Lady Poison. No, of Kudou Himiko. She would have finished her fight by now. She was out of the game, just like Shido. 

Juubei took a deep breath, steadying himself. "Sister," he said. "Is that you?" Kazuki was not there. He would have known. Perhaps Kazuki had done as he said, and gone on to finish the job. In that case, where was he? He could no longer look and see. 

A doctor, he thinks. Probably the same one that Shido had taken Emishi to, but they weren't here either, so they must have gone on. Gone to witness the end. He would go too. 

"You're alive?" Sakura said, and the stark relief in her voice did not quite disguise her distress. Well, she had reason to be. If she was here, wherever he was, she was probably out of the game as well, except that Makubex was not here. Had, for the first time, left her behind. Doubtless he had reasons but Juubei is not interested in them. But Sakura was perceptive, as well, and she shares his sense for _ki_ \- 

"Your eyes!" 

"I made a terrible mistake," Juubei said again, and his own voice seemed to be coming from somewhere distant as he did his best to explain. 

There were footsteps, two people entering the room - one young, one old. They must have been listening, for Juubei's voice had faltered, he had reached the limits of his knowledge, but the old man began to speak, and he sounded sad and tired. Sakura spoke then, still in defense of Makubex. Juubei knew he was not so strong as she was. 

"When this battle is over, Makubex said." That's what Sakura said, _when this battle is over_. "He didn't say, _when we win the battle._ " 

This was absolutely true and the knowledge was like a cold stone in his stomach. 

Sakura protested, but her faith was absolute, had always been absolute. She could not turn away from this knowledge. Neither could Juubei. He reached out to catch her hand as she stood. It would not be right to let her go alone; Makubex would need both of them, now. Sakura was a tower supporting the sky of his world, but she should not be the only one. "I'm coming too," he told her. 

"Hold on!" Another voice; the younger one who had entered the room with the old man. "With those wounds, you could die!" 

But he won't. "Even so, I must go," he said, and he wasn't sure whether he spoke to the young girl who was so worried, or the boy with silver hair who he had followed to the end of the world. He would go further.

He tried to stand, but even holding on to his sister's hand he rose almost upright and then his legs gave out, and he collapsed against her with a cry that he tried to supress. 

"What do you think you are?" Kudou Himiko's voice said, with a little laugh in the words. "A samurai?" And he felt her slim shoulder slip under his other arm, for him to lean on. 

Sakura's hand on his wrist was reassuringly real. "Let's go," she told him. "Makubex is waiting for us." 

He won't leave them behind. 

\-- 

They faced no opposition, which was good, for Juubei knew of the three of them, Kudou Himiko wasthe only one with the strength to fight. 

He did not know where they were, but Sakura did. She gave the directions back down to the center in a calm voice - a recitation; she had heard the route explained, but had never before taken it. Juubei wondered where, and how. Perhaps the healers had told her before he woke up. 

There wasn't much that needed to be said, but still, as they walked, Himiko asked questions. "Hey," she said. "Both of you were working for Makubex, right?" 

"Yes," Sakura said. Juubei was silent; it was not his place to speak on these things. 

"So why are you coming now? Are you hoping to stop us finding IL?" Her tone was more curious than accusing, as if she didn't think they could stop her, or would want to. And it was too late for that, anyway. 

Sakura's clothes rustled gently as she walked. "No," she said. "No, that's not our job. It's too late for that. We are only coming as witnesses, now." She stopped for a moment, and then added, very quietly, "And Makubex should not be alone, in whatever is to come now." 

"He must really be something, if you'll stick with him after all this," Himiko murmured, and she sounded - not approving, exactly, but respectful.

Sakura answered carefully, "He is. But that's not all of it. Some promises should not be broken, and we promised him our souls. Surely you understand that." 

Himiko shifted a little, catching hold of Juubei's wrist a little tighter. "I think I do," she said, and fell fitfully silent. 

\--

When they reached the corridoor outside Makubex's room, they paused for breath - there were no voices coming from beyond the door, and Juubei suspected grimly that they were already too late. 

He felt Sakura leave his side - Himiko wrapped an arm around his waist, to help him balance, but he was already healing, and truly he did not need the support - and open the doors; for her they opened at a touch. Makubex must be waiting for them, somewhere inside. 

But the room beyond was empty, the white noise of the fans the only sound. Sakura's voice rang out and echoed, far more certain than it should have been. "They've gone further on, and further up. The roof. He must have gone to the roof," she said, and her voice faltered for a moment. Juubei wondered what she saw that made her falter so much. 

Pushing through the doors and finding the elevator was easy. Everyone else was waiting there - everyone but Ginji. 

Kazuki, too. 

His heart pounding, Juubei abandoned Himiko's supportive shoulder, with a murmur of thanks, and walked over to his soulmate. He wanted to fall before him, beg forgiveness, but this was not the moment, and there was too much else that he had to do. So he reached out a hand, and Kazuki took it and held on tight. 

He had committed unforgivable acts, and still Kazuki trusted him, and his heart nearly burst with gratitude. He still had to atone for his crimes, though. 

"Ginji-san's gone after Makubex?" he asked, and someone answered, "Yeah. We can leave everything to Ginji." Midou-san, he decided, and as if to agree there was the click of a cigarette lighter.

"Makubex needs us," Sakura said, her voice suprisingly definate. "We'll follow them." 

"They went upstairs," Midou-san told them, and sighed. "Took both elevators." But there was a soft beep, and everyone turned to look. Juubei sensed an open space on the side of the room there was not before - one elevator, he realized, had returned, and was standing open for them. 

Midou growled, and Emishi laughed. "Looks like we get the elevator too," he said. "Sakura-han, which floor?" 

"Just press _up_. It will take us where we need to go." She stated this as a simple article of faith, but somehow it occured to no one to doubt her. 

When they arrived it was in an empty room where the rays of the rising run flood in through a window; Juubei could feel them playing across his cheeks, and he did not dare open his eyes for fear of the pain it would bring. He will have to become accustomed to keeping them shut, he imagined. It will not be too difficult. He has other senses. Kazuki's hand was still intwined with his, and Kazuki leaned over, whispered in his ear - "Juubei," he says. "I don't know what's going to happen, but Makubex - " 

A crashing noise came from outside and suddenly Juubei understood where Makubex had gone, what he meant to do. 

Kazuki's hand tightened on his, then released. "Go," he said. "Makubex needs you." 

Voices drifted on from outside the open window, and a storm of magnetism, not so strong as the one Juubei had unleashed with his lodestone but enough to make pain flash behind his closed eyes, surrounded them. Makubex and Ginji. Makubex's voice - he was plaintive, a child in pain, and Juubei wanted to ease his pain - but he couldn't. Not alone. He felt Sakura's hand brush his shoulder as he walked over to the window. He could still do some things. Kazuki would not begrudge them. Kazuki would understand, and forgive, because he felt the same way. 

"No they won't!" Makubex cried, and Juubei wanted to answer - how could he have missed this? How could he not have seen? "Nobody even knows my name - " 

"Makubex!" 

But of course Ginji understood. 

"I'll be sad. Isn't that enough?" His voice was the same one that they all followed out of hell. "Life is full of great things if you look for them. So live, Makubex!" 

"Ginji-san ..." 

"Not just Ginji," Juubei told him, and leaned out the window, holding out his hand. 

\--

Juubei is sure he will never see again, but some things he sees with perfect clarity, now. The way Kazuki looked at him the night before he left. The expression in Makubex's eyes when he came to Juubei three days later, and what it must have cost him. A hundred casual remarks, each alone tasting only of bitter loss, but that added together, tell him how and why. 

Perhaps Makubex tried to leave, and perhaps he did not. Juubei thinks he did not, and that this was not because he knew the futility of the attempt, but because he knew he was the only hope. 

He still is. There's no one else. He is broken and in pain and still he is all they have, and Juubei will give him everything, if only he would take it. 

Juubei sees now just how much Kazuki loves him, and always has, and always will. He does not believe he is worthy of that love, but it is Kazuki's opinion that matters, not his own, and he will no longer try to refuse it on those grounds. They'll need each other. 

And it is for that reason that Kazuki wants him to stay here in Mugenjou, because Juubei knows he loves Makubex, and Kazuki does as well. 

He knows what Makubex has given to them all. If he will give them a little more, everything will be alright. 

\--

"Give me your hand, Makubex," Juubei said, "and hold on tight." 

\---


End file.
